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Thanks for bearing with us in this thread. We’d like to announce that today we’ve introduced the addition of new installers, with implemented GOG Galaxy client.

Like Destro described it back in May, we decided to separate the „new" and „classic” installers, for your choice. So if you don’t care about the features like achievements or cloud-saves and don’t want to use GOG Galaxy, you can download the „Classic Game Installer", just like it was handled before. For games that have new installers, the default download view on „My account” will show the "GOG Galaxy Game Installers" - you will notice that, as it is visibly described in „My account” game view. To download the „classic” ones, just go to „Options" and choose „Classic Installers”.

The new GOG Galaxy Game Installers were added to +100 games - a selection of all games that make use of GOG Galaxy features. I'll post the current list of games with the new installers in a separate post.
Going forward, all new games that will use GOG Galaxy features, will now receive both GOG Galaxy Game Installer and Classic Game Installer.

Introduction of GOG Galaxy Game Installers doesn’t change anything in terms of keeping the Classic Game Installers up to date. As soon as we receive an update for any game, we will prepare an updated version of the classic installer, just like it was done in the past.

Edit: Pinned.
Post edited July 06, 2017 by fables22
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It just occurred to me that they should have announced this installer change last week:

"You always said that Galaxy would be completely optional!"

"I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." :-)
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Splatsch: This idea is good too.
Why not simply putting the links in our libraries : "Offline installer" & "Galaxy installer" ? With tooltips to explain like "this is the offline installer, it doesn't install glaxy" & "this instals galaxy if it's not already installed & the game" That would be so much better !
Exactly. But that would require clear tooltips and that's not really a strength of GOG.
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fables22: Hey everyone!

Starting on Friday, we’re going to include the option to install the GOG Galaxy client from the offline installers downloaded via GOG.com in over 100 games.

As many new users discover and download games from our website, we don’t want them to end up with installations that don’t auto-update or backup saves to the cloud. In fact, we want to offer everyone the most convenient experience from the get-go.

Don’t fret, nothing’s changed with our approach to GOG Galaxy being optional, which is why you can easily uncheck the GOG Galaxy installation within the game installer settings.

Last but not least, here’s a list of games that will include the option to install GOG Galaxy: bit.ly/GOG_games_installers
well, i hope it wont be some trickster "checked on by default" opt out option on installers
i'd also rather have tech support and gog team first ensure that offline installers dont crash or bug out during installation or at first game's launch because of the lack of galaxy on one's computer, forcing peeps to be tech savy and manually delete/rename dll files or such...

at first i had only a couple of games who had such issue, and in the past monthes the count raised up to over a dozen of recently released games.
at first i was posting on forum about that, then i was invited to rather fill in some tech-support ticket even if the online form clearly aint suited for such notification yet... then i grew bored and fed up and i just dont bother/overload tech support anymore

i hope i wont have to put galaxy on the already "sacrificed to steam" other computer, just for the sake of installing games, to move their install folder on a clean machine afterwardfs

so much for the "optional" client... less and less optional, it seems, then
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Splatsch: But what does this changes for people who pirated the game ? If it's optional to instal Galaxy, what's the point ?
It encourages them to try out this awesome feature, or to install it accidentally (not unchecking the box), or not knowing what it is (not realising it's a step towards a legit account). And then, one toe in the system, there's a chance they adopt it. It's, basically, a fishing net, bringing potentially unaware customers back to the official GOG world.


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ElTerprise: That's true. But I wonder how it'll take for the people who provide the pirated copies to circumvent that - if Denuvo can be circumenvented, something like a bundled Galaxy is a non-issue for them.
No need to cirumvent it like a proper DRM protection, as it's optional anyway (you circumvent it by unticking it). But it's more like a commercial, or an imbedded demo of the legit GOG system.
Post edited May 11, 2017 by Telika
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Splatsch: You want to help people installing Galaxy ? There are way better options. Like a huge button during installation instead of links to other games to buy for example. A third button at the end of the installation : "quit/install Galaxy/Launch the game" ? Or even at the beginning ? "Install/install with Galaxy" ?
imho if the user needs to be informed about Galaxy after having already downloaded and executed the standalone installer then GOG already failed to do its job - that is the website failed to do its job.
You need to grab the users attention _when_ he is looking for the download of his game on the website. Then you need to tell him about the different ways to download the game.
Just a little banner " Try Galaxy ..." is not enough, because the new user likely has no idea whats behind this "Galaxy"-thing.
Take the shiny selling-points from gog.com/galaxy and present them to the user directly in account page.
You want cloud-saves, auto-updates, incremental patches and all the social fluff -> go here download galaxy
you want the standalone installer -> go here

Bundling the galaxy client with the standalone installer is just a bad band aid.
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ElTerprise: Exactly. But that would require clear tooltips and that's not really a strength of GOG.
Yep :S (which is a shame)

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Telika: It encourages them to try out this awesome feature, or to install it accidentally (not unchecking the box), or not knowing what it is (not realising it's a step towards a legit account). And then, one toe in the system, there's a chance they adopt it. It's, basically, a fishing net, bringing potentially unaware customers back to the official GOG world.
I'm... not really convinced XD It's a lot of "hopes" for a lot of annoyances (I think).
I understand that GOG wants that pirates finally come here, but... like I said, I'm not really convinced this would really work.
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Telika: Because the people who pirated the game wouldn't see it.
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Splatsch: But what does this changes for people who pirated the game ? If it's optional to instal Galaxy, what's the point ?
Assuming Telika's theory is correct, GOG is convinced that pirates will give two shits about a client that requires them to sign up. Sure, they'll greatly appreciate the default opt-in, thus happily leaving the box checked, create an account and give Galaxy a whirl. Because all they ever wanted was auto-update and backup saves to the cloud. It'll make all their dreams come true (and help inflate the total number of Galaxy installations presented by GOG to prospective business partners).
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ElTerprise: Of course it's a business decision and yet it's an implementation problem at least in my opinion. It's probably the most complicated and inconvenient way of implementing it because it requires additional updates of all installers on top of the "normal" game updates (and they cannot even keep those up-to-date). I'm looking forward to complaints about broken Galaxy installations thanks to that implementation....
That completly depends on the goals and priorities.

Does GOG has completly ignored the aspects WHY this is a horrible bad impemention, is for me just a strong indicator what their REAL goal is.
Maximize the number of Galaxy installations at ALL costs, while it still beeing formal "optional".

Bandwidth concern: thrown under the bus
Storage space concern: thrown under the bus
Opt-In: thrown under the bus
Concerns of customers that Galaxy will slowly become mandatory: thrown under the bus
Does the customer by using the offline installer has already MADE a decision against using Galaxy: thrown under the bus

and i bet there are many other points..

It is NOT a technical issue.. it is about the goals and priorities... thus a business decision.
Post edited May 11, 2017 by Executer
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Telika: No need to cirumvent it like a proper DRM protection, as it's optional anyway (you circumvent it by unticking it). But it's more like a commercial, or an imbedded demo of the legit GOG system.
Yes I get that - but people who pirate without the intent of ever buying games even will notice that Galaxy won't work without an account and having the pirated games in said account. My point was that it might happen that the distributed installers will have it unticked by default because of that - I don't who pirates would react to suddenly having Galaxy installed without knowing what Galaxy is. But that's just what I assume will happen sooner or later.
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Splatsch: I'm... not really convinced XD It's a lot of "hopes" for a lot of annoyances (I think).
I understand that GOG wants that pirates finally come here, but... like I said, I'm not really convinced this would really work.
Like spam, it's just about getting a fraction of the targets responding positively.

And people pirate with very diverse mindsets and degrees of awareness. So, in the lot, there may be enough potential new customers.
Post edited May 11, 2017 by Telika
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Did you actually hire some ex Microsoft employee? Because it looks very similar to "Upgrade your system to Windows 10" madness.
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ElTerprise: That's true. But I wonder how it'll take for the people who provide the pirated copies to circumvent that - if Denuvo can be circumenvented, something like a bundled Galaxy is a non-issue for them.
Indeed, and even if they don't bother removing the bundled Galaxy installer the whole scheme could potentially backfire once pirates get sick and tired of seeing the default opt-in (or, for those who don't notice it, of having Galaxy installed against their wishes).
Post edited May 11, 2017 by Lemon_Curry
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Executer: That completly depends on the goals and priorities.

Does GOG has completly ignored the aspects WHY this is a horrible bad impemention, is for me just a strong indicator what their REAL goal is.
Maximize the number of Galaxy installations at ALL costs, while it still beeing formal "optional".

Bandwidth concern: thrown under the bus
Storage space concern: thrown under the bus
Opt-In: thrown under the bus
Concerns of customers that Galaxy will slowly become mandatory: thrown under the bus
Does the customer by using the offline installer has already MADE a decision against using Galaxy: thrown under the bus

and i bet there are many other points..

It is NOT a technical issue.. it is about the goals and priorities... thus a business decision.
As I said of course it's a business decision - just wanted to point out that's it's very short sighted one if you don't see the hidden costs of the implementation (it's "only" labour cost but still that maintenance of all offline installers will be a lot of working hours). And unlike the rather expensive internationalisation of the store - it's not certain that this will actually be worth the cost. We'll see....
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Lemon_Curry: Indeed, and even if they don't bother removing the bundled Galaxy installer the whole scheme could potentially backfire once pirates get sick and tired of seeing the default opt-in (or, for those who don't notice it, of having Galaxy installed against their wishes).
Agreed. They could just provide a prominent warning in the instructions. Also it's not like GOG installers are the only option for providing pirated games...
Post edited May 11, 2017 by ElTerprise
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Splatsch: But what does this changes for people who pirated the game ? If it's optional to instal Galaxy, what's the point ?
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Telika: It encourages them to try out this awesome feature, or to install it accidentally (not unchecking the box), or not knowing what it is (not realising it's a step towards a legit account). And then, one toe in the system, there's a chance they adopt it. It's, basically, a fishing net, bringing potentially unaware customers back to the official GOG world.
I don't buy that theory.
People that can be lured away from piracy by the convenience of a gaming client have long ago started using steam or origin. Why would they continue to go through the hassle of pirating GOG's (inconvenient) standalone installers ?
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ElTerprise: Yes I get that - but people who pirate without the intent of ever buying games even will notice that Galaxy won't work without an account and having the pirated games in said account.
I once saw a friend run a pirated copy of Yooka Laylee from GOG. A pop-up showed on a mutual friend's end that the first friend was playing Yooka Laylee. I don't know how intentional is that on GOG's end, but it could be very possible that all of this ruckus is for the pirates? If so, I doubt pirates are any less angry than we are still, considering they still have to download extra and avoid forgetting that checkbox.

Gotta wait for the day of reckoning then.